Ask people if they want something new, something different, something better, and they'll probably say "yes". Get people to change their behaviours to use the new, different, better thing you've just built for them and it's a different story. It's hard. They don't change. At a basic economic level I guess you can explain this … Continue reading The change paradox
Things I have learned this week: - when push comes to shove, finance people simply cannot get agile approaches. They'd prefer to inhabit a land of fiction. - only 3 of the 11 members of the House of Lords Select Committee on Digital Literacy have a Twitter account... - ... but two of those three … Continue reading Weeknote 232: Pleasing Palindromic Perfection
I've seen quite extensive coverage this week of the topic of Digital Literacy in the education system in the UK over the past few days. It stems from the publication of a report by the House of Lords Committee on Digital Literacy, and most has been framed in a simple way: should digital literacy be … Continue reading Should digital literacy begin with phone numbers?
There is an accepted modern wisdom that goes a little like this: Change is good. Continuous change is even better. Delivering to user needs is paramount. The only way to test what are the best things to meet a user's needs is to put things in front of them. Change is the only certainty. Everything … Continue reading Desponsive Design
Things I have learned this week: - every time I update the stamp website I take more out - diary management as a free agent is without doubt the biggest challenge; being at the mercy of others, and also maintaining one's own diary competence - writing vaguely about Big Data on LinkedIn gets a lot of attention … Continue reading Weeknote 231: juggling appointments on the knife edge
I was reminiscing about the country of Iceland a few nights ago when watching the Ben Still film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. I've visited the place a couple of times, and the wonderful panning shots of the stark volcanic landscape had me thinking of another visit again the near future. Alongside the breathtaking scenery, … Continue reading Number Prophetess
Data and analytics are wonderful things, aren't they? Ooh, the power of data. Woo the insight from analytics. And it's all so automated. So automagic... Thing is, as the very old saying goes, Garbage In, Garbage Out. So it was when I came across a piece in The Telegraph from a month ago... "Only 7 of … Continue reading Keeping up
So, right, imagine that you've got a padlock. And imagine that that padlock has got two keyholes, and can only be unlocked if both keys are used. But the key to lock the padlock is different to the key that is used to unlock the padlock, and whilst you are the only person who has … Continue reading Crap tech industry metaphors: 13 Public & Private Keys
This lunchtime I'm doing a short workshop with a group of graduate schemers at one of my current clients. You can see what I'll be talking about here... [gigya src="http://prezi.com/bin/preziloader.swf" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="550" height="400" bgcolor="#ffffff" flashvars="prezi_id=_ga7cd7c1mqr&lock_to_path=1&color=ffffff&autoplay=no&autohide_ctrls=0" ]
This week I have learned: - I really do have quite a visceral, gut reaction to the concept of being measured in judgement by a third party (which in turn means you really should VOTE FOR ME) - randomly-plucked words can lead to some entertaining blog posts - as can a bit of self analysis - people … Continue reading Weeknote 230: making connections
